Sennheiser PC37X randomly goes bad after disconnecting the cable ?
Greetings, Yesterday I was using my headset like normal with my macbook, just listening to music and on a call with people like usual, and the headset was perfectly fine. The stock wire that came with the headset is extremely long and yesterday it annoyed me very much that it kept getting tangled with itself, so I decided to see if the cable is replaceable. I pulled out the cable from the headset and saw the adapter, and looked online for a replacement. Upon plugging it back in, the audio sounded extremely muffled and washed out. Im not sure what I did wrong to make it mess up like that as I've always taken good care of it, ive had it for about 2 years and its always just been chilling on my desk, but anywho I thought the cable just went bad and ordered a replacement. The replacement came, and the issue is still persistant, so I am not sure what the issue is I've tried multiple different headsets and the issue is not with the port, and I also tried it with my windows laptop and...
Apr 23, 2024
Canned Gravitas Still listening, Babylon Sisters as I type, I think I can safely say none will be disappointed. I was hoping for an EH set of cans, endless hours, I think I got them. I have the HD700’s because I wanted no detail left out, yes I have read every review and still wanted everything revealed... well I was hearing it all,, but not with the depth, clarity and ease the Elex brings. Blade Runner, Rachel’s Song, Vangelis, DSD 2.8, the whispering airy notes (spacey vacuum noise;) gains detail within itself. The room seems a bit smaller, though at the same time the instruments do not fight each other, they maintain their individuality more firmly. Nora Jones, Come Away With Me, DSD 2.8 studio file, a good sibilance gauntlant test, that I feel my current setup with HD700’s passes, it got better,, as though not a recording, and that is the goal. You can push the Elex‘s and they just get better, they bloom, it all holds together and nothing gets pushed into each other. In fact, something new; left them blasting on the couch, walking away... they don’t sound like cans left running... they sound like speakers... Rig: FLAC/DSD---Audiogate (pc)>--<Korg DS-DAC-100>~<modded APPJ PA1502A. switching with HD700’s. My typical list, damn they all got better, Audiogate set @ 2.8. Steely Dan, Aja DSD 2.8 & Gaucho DSD 2.8 both for everything, depth, detail, stage Adele, Hello FLAC 24/96 for vocals Roberta Flack, Killing Me Softly FLAC 24/192 1973 remastered for vocals... she is right there... Here is the odd one, but so familiar to me for comparing "fluidity": Fleetwood Mac, Bare Trees (yes, the song track Bare Trees from the album) FLAC 24/192 1972 remastered The Elex build, look and finish show excellet craftsmanship. Comfort on the head is comfortable, the weight is there, but it feels as though they were made for you. I hope this helps until you get yours, it will be fun, getting late, later...
https://www.massdrop.com/buy/massdrop-x-focal-elex-headphones/talk/2047735
I just put in a perfect pair of NOS CBS-Hytron 6V6GT's, that I was holding for when the Elex's came, into my little modded PA1502A along with a NOS USAF Tung-Sol 12AX7. Compared to the Fender (Raytheon blk) 6V6GT's & Baldwin (Raytheon blk) 12AX7,,, well it was a bit smaller stage with the Elex than I had hoped,, it just opened back up, yup, fell asleep last night with cans on trying to listen to too much...
The Nora Jones sibilance test - absolutely nothing, just her voice with her native sibilants - perfectly lucid. I think it is in part the Focal driver stiffness, not hitting resonant distortions? Would love to see super slow-mo videos of different driver surfaces at these points, ever seen? The biggest jump here for me, esp. sibilance, was going to studio files of her in DSD 2.8, and with the HD700's or the Phonon's it was pretty much erased,, I thought... now even another layer removed, moving into that virtual studio in steps...
As much as I tried to love my Heron 5, it still felt short of tubes and it had a faulty power supply which I took as "wasn't meant to be".
I still intend on switching to solid state, mainly because I am consolidating my music room, my home theatre room and my headphone gears into one setup. Mainly for cost and convenience, I made the biggest mistake of my life when I used my Lampizator from my music room with my headphones, now I can't go back to my Metrum R2R.
As for speakers I'll be selling my PMC (music), Seaton Sound (movies), and replacing them with the ATC SCM150ASLT which I auditioned 2 years ago and it was the best sound I've ever heard, easily bests TOTL and much more expensive Wilson and Focal Utopias. I've got a major birthday coming up so my wife has agreed, there's some benefits to getting old after all :)
In the end I decided to get an Audio-gd HE-9 which is $2.5k delivered. It doubles up as a pre-amp for the ATCs and apparently they go really well together. A lot of people in my shoes who went from tubes to SS went back to tubes eventually, hopefully that won't be me!
I do like a neutral sounding amp, because they are more versatile, if I wanted to tweak the tonality I would buy a DAC that suits, and a colored amp can mask the capabilities of your DAC. This is why I bought an Audio-GD HE-9 because it's widely considered as "wire with gain", it's a bit hard to audition one since there are no local dealers, but I've heard very good things from ears of people I trust a lot. And I can draw some correlations based on how I feel about TOTL amps from Violectric, Schiit, Moon etc.
None of my current DACs can play DSD, I'm going to wait to see how it all pans out before I start investing in DSD, currently I don't feel a great urge to upgrade all of my PCM material. Well that's just me, I respect your opinion all the same :)
oh yeah.
yes. you WILL.
lol.
I see your intent/goal, a SS amp like the He-9 that can re-create anything you feed it, and I may be heading down the same road, after I have some more fun with tubes. Thanks for making me look, found a nice article: https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/analogue-warmth
Went to see what was going on, on the studio side with "recreation" of the old sounds... damn... https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/all-plugins.html
It is great that they are capturing the essence of the old hardware, before they are no more, welcome to the sims... https://www.uaudio.com/uad-plugins/guitar-bass/fender-55-dlx.html
One thing with current driven is they work best with planars with fixed impedance response, with something like the HD6XX with wild impedance swings in the bass, it sounds a tad warm. It should work great with your Elex though. AFAIK at the Currawong's review of the Elex, he had AGD R2R7 DAC + AGD Master 9 amp as one of his main rigs. He didn't have any issues with it. Thing with all AGD DACs and amps, they're all derivatives of each other, so it should be a great pairing!
Between the two firmwares on offer, the original firmware offers a smoother sound and the latest firmware offers a sharper more aggressive tone, however it is also more sensitive to digital changes. I've recently become a believer in digital variability, Kodi and Foobar sounds different when all processing's been turned off; the SPDIF and USB inputs on my DAC sound completely different, both are galvanically isolated and both convert directly to I2S. I don't understand the mechanics behind it but the sound difference is hard to ignore.
Anyways, coincidentally I've also been looking at getting a replacement DAC after a power spike from the USB input killed my Lampi. It's currently in the shed, awaiting repairs. I don't know what's wrong with it but I'm going to start with replacing the Amanero board, if the fault is further down the line in the main PCB then I'm SOL lol, and it will be DAC shopping for me. My wife feels sorry for me, I feel sorry for me. It comes at a bad time as I was just about to cave in to peer pressure and buy an Elex.
I too am interested in a AGD R2R, but the flagships are so damn large. Other considerations are the MSB Discrete, Chord Dave and TotalDAC D1-Dual. You'll notice all these DACs are much more dearer than the AGD R2R, but given how much I like their HE-9 I think their R2R will be a real contender, I might buy myself a ticket to Foshan to audition it. I really have high hopes for AGD's R2R DACs.
"In April 2013 I made an enlightening exercise. Just out of curiosity I designed a DAC that converts DSD data stream (all types known) to analog and does it WITHOUT SILICON. I’ve tried various chips - all kinds - some “DSD READY” some DSD through PCM and some real DSD. As a chief designer I felt that Lampizator fame needs a DAC like no other. I created a converter that treats the DSD in pure analog domain and produces music in it’s virgin glory. Without any manipulation, digital processing, PCM conversion, delta sigma, or anything like that. I kept DSD in its purest native form and keep the sound with phase coherence, zero colorations or compression.
The sound is the purest copy of the original DSD recording I can think of. It is a pity this type of product could not be released for sale. The process is 100% free of active solid state components. Only tube active filters are employed. At the end the signal is amplified by triodes again - in the way we always have done at LampizatOr. I don’t follow the world developments in this field and I don’t have time to read internet forums but I guess this must be one of the first such pure tube DSD DACs worldwide. In my design I used the FM radio principle for tuning into the data stream and extracting music modulation from the carrier waveform. The technology therefore is based on the grandmother’s radio with the magic green eye. "
"Four elements that came together and in perfect synergy created the best music reproduction I ever heard: DSD source files, pure analog DSD converter, tube Lampizator stage with tube power supply and Duelund Copper Cast capacitors." Lukasz Fikus , Chief Designer and Owner
http://www.lampizator.eu/Fikus/DSD_DAC.html
Right now I'm still on my holy quest of the perfect second harmonic;) just got a used Cary CAD300-SEI with Hexfred's, Mundorfs, Grayhill switch, WBT posts and the remote cap power bank,, geeeze & damn, the bass... I put some Sylvania "bad Boys" 6SN7's and new Sophia Royal Princesses 300B's in it, then listened to the damn things transform... nice, but took until 4AM... Feeding it DSD->Korg 100 and dropped the noise floor with a double-conversion UPS. It's purpose is primarily for speakers, but still in the process of crossover & diaphragm upgrades there, so using cans with it for now. It brought about another paradigm shift in listening,,, I went into the studio, and became surrounded... you know,, "Host of Angels" stuff ;) with the right Angel recording of course...
So what are you getting for DAC now? Still keen on R2R with DSD? I had thought the DP-777 did DSD, I must've been dreaming when I claimed that it did or got confused with another product, oops! Obviously I'm not a big fan of DSD, I see is as a nice to have but I'm unlikely to ever use, I don't particularly feel like converting all my FLACs to DSD nor going back to optical. A problem with many DSD DACs is they upsample all inputs to DSD, whether it's PCM or DSD - PSAudio, Lampizator, Meitner all do this. Which is why I like Audio-GD's implementation where PCM stays as PCM and DSD gets processed separately via a FPGA. Something I am more interested in than DSD is MQA, but it locks me into only a handful of DACs. So I want to wait to see how this plays out before buying a new DAC.
Hey you should look into the Uptone ISO Regen, it's one of the biggest upgrades I've made recently. I was skeptical initially but was itching to try something new, so I went for it and it really did surprise me. This little guy made a huge improvement to my system and mainly in terms of jitter.
Yes, the side benefit of plugging cans into the Cary CAD-300SEI is just sooo sweet...
On the R2R front, which is now part and parcel of the Siren goal, I ordered a Denafrips Ares, it can process DSD natively through it's FIR filters,, as can your Lampi I believe;) This will tell me if R2R is my direction going forward,, Ares will be a fair test I believe.
Upgrading my old KLF-20's with Titanium in the tweeters & "squakers" (mid horns) while waiting for all the rest of the parts to rebuild the crossovers.
I have the iFi Gemini split USB cable to allow me to feed clean 5V to the Korg 100 DAC, and use a Corning optical USB as a clean 5 Gb/s USB-VCSEL-USB transceiver, a re-generator or purifier, if you will... The dedicated PC is then off by itself, stewing in it's own noise... but no fan component; fanless i7, 16GB 1600MHz RAM & 1TB SSD.
https://www.corning.com/optical-cables-by-corning/worldwide/en/products/usb-optical-cables.html